Lucky Escape

September 6, 2014

Blurred flash of striped brown

Chipmunk darts beneath the deck

Squeaking in terror

Dark shadow of red-tail hawk

Swiftly drifts across the ground.

Emily

***************************************************************************************************
In response to Writing Challenge: Full Tanaka
Traditional tanka contain five lines instead of haiku’s three, and 31 syllables instead of 17. The structure is that of a haiku followed by two additional lines of seven syllables each: 5-7-5-7-7. (Many contemporary poets take liberties with the specifics, and you can, too.)

I chose to tell the story of an incident I witnessed yesterday afternoon.